refugees run the seas... (2014-15). Rectified readymade, public art project. Billboard, postcard; dimensions variable. Created with the technical support of Kurt Kraler and Manolo Lugo.A blue colour field captioned
with the last line of Wyclef Jean’s rap in Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie.'refugees run the seas...' is a billboard project that draws and diverts from pop culture as a way to invite the viewer to imagine an incalculable future where justice for migrants exists. The work consists of a blue colour field captioned with the phrase ‘refugees run the seas cause we own our own votes.’ The text plays with the last line from Wyclef Jean's rap in Shakira's 2006 song Hips Don't Lie. Shifting “boats” into “votes” as if misheard or mispronounced, the work simultaneously evokes painful past and present scenes of harrowing escape while allowing the possibility of a time to come when those seeking refuge will make their voices count. The blue that frames the text comes from a photograph of the sky above the billboard taken during the day. 'refugees run the seas…' inverts the logic dominance that keeps migrant bodies beyond the lines of social mobility. Territory turns to ocean, day turns into night, and displaced bodies turn into agents of movement, rather than victims. The notion of movement is also found in the trace of the phrase's original context, which alludes to sensuality and opens up the work to potential queer readings.

NEW PRIMARIES (2014). Digital print on canvas; 12 x 12 inches. A proposition to expand the field of aesthetic education.

Exhibition History:

Take Home the Unknown – SAVAC, Toronto, 2014.

true colours (2014). Participatory public art project in collaboration with York University students; commissioned by the Art Gallery of York University for WorldPride Toronto. Acrylic on canvas, two panels; 5 x 48 feet each panel. Photographs by Francisco-Fernando Granados; installation image courtesy of the Art Gallery of York University.

Through a participatory
process, the project repurposes the aesthetics of geometric abstraction in
order to randomize the palette of LGBT and queer Pride flags.

Exhibition History:

WorldPride Parade, Toronto, 2014. Curated by Suzanne Carte.

The Ballad of _____ B (2014). Rectified readymade script, multimedia performance installation for a stage; created for HATCH 2014, Harbourfront Centre's Performing Arts Residency. Installation photographs by Manolo Lugo. Created with funding support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.Concept: Francisco-Fernando Granados

spatial profiling… is a durational performance
and site-specific drawing project. The action consists of a continuous tracing
of the outline of my profile as I move along the contours of a given space. The
piece originated as a formal exercise in the studio that opened up ways to
explore the relationship between time and space through the body, as well as
racial politics and the tropes of identity-based art. The iterations of the project in Vancouver (2011) and Toronto (2013), and Regina (2014) were inspired by and borrowed its colour palette from Margaret Dragu’sEine Kleine Nacht Radio (1999). Drawn directly on the
wall, the trace of the action forms a pattern that indicates the passing of the
outermost edges of the body, through a process that pushes past the boundaries
of the identifiable. Although mostly performed as a solo action over a
prolonged period of time, a recent version of the piece included the
audience as co-performers.Exhibition History:

spatial profiling... (2013). Performance, site-specific drawing; performed at TeaK, University of the
Arts, Helsinki.

spatial profiling – after Margaret Dragu’s Eine Kleine Nacht Radio (2013). Performance, site-specific drawing; performed with Margaret Dragu and Jessica Karuhanga for Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, Toronto. Footage by Aliya Pabani.

Recent projects in Toronto include an extended public art work for NuitBlanche, an installation at Sur Gallery, a space by the Latin American Canadian Art Projects, and a performance at the AGO's First Thursday.

His writing has been published in magazines and art journals including FUSE, KAPSULA, Canadian Theatre Review, and PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, and most recently in Common Grounds, an exhibition catalogue published by Hatje Cantz, and in voz-a-voz, online publication platform produced by e-fagia organization. Awards and honours include Emerging Artist Grants from the Toronto and Ontario Arts Councils, the Governor General’s Silver Medal for academic achievement upon graduating from Emily Carr University in 2010, and being named as one of Canada's 30 Under 30 by BLOUIN ARTINFO in 2014. He completed a Masters of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto in 2012.

He is a member of the 7a*11d International Performance Festival Collective and teaches courses in contemporary art theory and practice at OCADU and University of Toronto Scarborough.